Twitter, Social Media Explodes As Earthquake Shakes New York City Area And Northeast

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A 5.8 magnitude earthquake that was felt along the Northeast coast Tuesday shook the ground, swayed buildings and left many residents wondering what was happening.

Tuesday afternoon, those that were at work, at home and online across the Tri-State area during the event took to social media to make their thoughts known.

Before most even knew for sure that it was an earthquake which struck New York City and a large portion of the East Coast, Twitter was flooded with the #Earthquake hashtag as users, including celebrities and reporters, took to the social media outlet. The Internet giant later tweeted that 40,000 earthquake-related tweets were inputted within one minute of the quake.

“And, we hit about 5,500 Tweets per second (TPS). For context, this TPS is more than Osama Bin Laden’s death & on par w/ the Japanese quake,” @twitter said.